How do people navigate the supermarket?

Connoisseurs of oddball consumer research will savor the findings of a Wharton School study on the typical paths consumers take through supermarkets. After attaching ID tags to shopping carts, researchers used a multivariate clustering algorithm (and who among us does not?) to map out such paths. It turns out, for example, that shoppers rarely make it down to the end of an aisle. Instead, they make short forays into aisles, then scurry back to the perimeter.